I have spent the past three days as part of a group of ten clergy men and women from different faiths and denominations in a training on leading congregations in transition. It has been a fascinating and eye-opening experience. It has been a time to reconsider some of the choices I have made in the past and to think about hopes for the future.

Much of the conversation over these three days centered on the role of clergy in helping congregations to negotiate the emotional and spiritual experience of big transitions. Such transitions, we learned, always have three parts: the end of the congregation's old identity, an "in between" phase of uncertainty in which the congregation rediscovers itself, and a beginning in which the new identity is born. (This model is highly influenced by the work of the late William Bridges). Congregational transitions begin with an ending and end with a beginning.

You might be tempted to think that the trick is to minimize the time spent in the uncomfortable "in between" phase (which Bridges calls "the Neutral Zone"). Not so. That is the time of possibility and discovery. Difficult, sometimes painful, things happen in the "in between," but it also is the place of inquiry, creativity, discovery and renewal. It is to be cherished, not rushed through.

And here is another important truth about congregations in transition: Change is not just handed down to the congregation by its leaders. Good leaders spend a lot of time listening to people, finding out what they want, and responding to the needs of the community. Congregational leaders who enter headlong into changes that serve only to satisfy their interests, or their pet theories, do not last long. Transition is directed by the needs of the community.

I've been thinking all week about how the insights from the training reflect on this week's Torah portion, Terumah. The portion describes the building of the Mishkan, or Tabernacle — the portable Temple that the Israelites carried with them through the wilderness as a dwelling place for God's presence. The story also suggests an ending, a middle and a beginning.

In order for the Mishkan to be built, it was necessary for the Israelites to bring donations of wood, precious metals, gems, animal skins, and yarns for its construction. Each family had to part with something that was valuable to them. They had to begin with an ending.

Then the Israelites entered a phase in which they had neither their precious objects nor a special place to experience God's presence. Before the Mishkan could be completed, the Israelites had to experience the sin of the Golden Calf and the shattering of the tablets of the Ten Commandments. It also was in this uncomfortable time that they discovered their own generosity, artistry and the new way they would organize their community. In the end, with the Mishkan completed, the Israelites saw the cloud of God's presence descend upon them and enter into them. A new beginning.

This is a process that is repeated in congregations day after day. We always are in the midst of putting together the elements of the house that will be the special gathering place of the community in God's presence. We always are gathering the resources we need to build and maintain the synagogue (or temple, church, mosque, gurdwara, etc.). We always are finding ways to transform our spiritual home to meet the needs of our times. We always are entering a new age together as a sacred community.

It is a truism that congregations always are transforming themselves and that we always are adapting to what is new. The same can be said for just about anything in life. Yet, it is helpful to be mindful of the cycle. It is too easy for the spiritual life of our communities to become stale and lose meaning when we are inattentive to the need for purposeful, intentional transitions. We need to be prepared for the grief of loss that comes with endings, for the challenges and opportunities of crossing the wilderness during the time "in between," and for celebrating new beginnings when our hopes are fulfilled.

This is going to be the story of my life in the coming year. I will be working to guide two different congregations through times of transition — the congregation I soon will be leaving and the congregation that I soon will be entering. My life — and the lives of the communities I serve — will be all about endings that are followed by beginnings. I hope to share more about the transition with you over the coming months.

May all of the transitions in your life be fulfilling as you say goodbye, cross the wilderness, and say hello.

A sermon on the challenge of building joyful synagogues for the 21st century.

Sometimes, one person’s moment of deliverance can prove to be another person’s tragedy. Disaster for one person becomes a miracle for another. How is it that one person can deserve to be saved at the expense of another person?

This is a question that the rabbis saw in the story of the parting of the Red Sea, which we read about in this week’s Torah portion (Beshalach). The Israelites, who had thought they were sure goners, saw the waters of the Red Sea part and they marched to freedom on dry ground, while the entire Egyptian army was engulfed by the sea and drowned. The Israelites sang the Torah’s most famous song in celebration, but there was no singing in Egypt.

You may know that there is a famous midrash on this story in which God silences the angels in heaven from joining the Israelites in song. God asks the heavenly hosts, “How can you sing My praises while My creatures are drowning?” Disaster and miracle are in the eye of the beholder. God cries for the Egyptians, and we learn from this to regard the full reality of every situation, not just how it benefits us. In Jewish tradition, we remember that there is suffering in every joy, and there are moments of redemption even in great loss. You, no doubt, know about the custom of removing some wine from the second cup of the Passover seder in order to remember how the Egyptians suffered during the Ten Plagues. You may not know that we also diminish our joy on the seventh day of Passover — the day that marks the anniversary of the parting of the Red Sea — by reciting only the short form of the Hallel psalms of thanksgiving. We want to notice, as God noticed, that our freedom was won at the expense of Egypt’s great loss. The Zohar, the most important work of the Jewish mystical tradition, has its own story about the parting of the Red Sea and the death of the Egyptians. In the Zohar, there is a moment in which the angel who represented Egypt in the heavenly court stood before God and said, “How can You choose to let one nation of sinners die to save another nation of sinners? How can you pick winners and losers among two people who both have broken faith with You?” The Zohar says that letting the Egyptians die was an excruciating decision for God.

The Zohar looks at one puzzling phrase in the Torah for a clue of God’s painful dilemma. While the Israelites were trapped between the Egyptian army and the sea, God said to Moses, "Mah titzak elai; debeir el B'nei Yisrael v'yisa'u," “Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the Israelites to advance!” Jewish tradition has long puzzled over the verse. Why does God tell the Israelites to stop crying out when they have not been crying? Why does God tell them to advance when the sea has not yet parted?

The Zohar interprets the verse by saying that God was telling the Israelites, “Don’t think I’m going to save you just because of your pleas. If you want to be saved, prove yourself worthy of being saved by advancing — that is — by performing mitzvot!” God wanted the Israelites to prove themselves more worthy than the Egyptians by actually living up to the standards expected of them.

When the Israelites found themselves in dire straights, they were tempted to think that God might save them merely because of the covenant God had formed with their ancestors. The covenant goes a long way, surely, but can it justify the choice to save Israel by destroying another nation? God says, figuratively, “You’ve got to give Me a better reason than that to save you. Show me that you really understand what it means to be in a relationship with God by being godly.”

“Mah titzak elai”, “Why are you crying out to Me?” God says. Why aren’t you doing what is right and acting out of your highest values? That — in the end — is what will save you. "v'yisa'u!" Advance! Do the right thing! I am not going to compare the situation of Judaism in North America today with the situation of the Israelites huddled on the shores of the Red Sea with Pharaoh’s army fast approaching. Our situation is not really quite that bad. But I am sure that you are familiar with the dire warnings about the future of the Jewish people in this hemisphere that have been issued by the Pew Study and by others. Some will say that we are stuck in a place where we are hedged between an army before us and a sea behind us.

The army before us might be the demographic reality of Jewish zero-population growth. A low birth rate and a high rate of intermarriage means that the Jewish people are shrinking relative to almost every other demographic group in the world.

We might also believe that the sea behind us is a metaphor for the loss of support for Jewish institutions among today’s Generation Xers and Millennials. Younger Jews do not feel the same impulse to support synagogues the way their parents’ and grandparents’ generations felt compelled to do their part by joining synagogues and donating to Jewish causes.

It does not seem like a stretch to say that we are in a moment in Jewish history when we feel threatened. We wonder if synagogues will last to the end of this century. And we know that, when facing a desperate situation, we tend not to think as clearly as we usually do. We put our survival ahead of everything else and don’t stop to consider the consequences of our actions. It’s time for us to make sure that we are thinking straight, and that we are acting out of our highest values.

Torah teaches us that kvetching doesn’t help. Crying out to God won’t save us. The same can be said for other forms of expecting a miracle. No unforeseen deep-pockets donor is going to come along to save us from our challenging demographic realities. No new program is going to be the magic bullet that suddenly gets young Jews to fill the seats of the synagogue and start supporting it the way their grandparents did.

There are a lot of great ideas in the Jewish community today. In my fourteen years as a congregational rabbi, I have been truly impressed by innovative programs and policies designed to re-engage Jews and especially to get young Jewish families to come to the synagogue.

There have been successful efforts to leverage future Jewish giving by teaching the value of philanthropy to b’nei mitzvah students. I have seen programs like SynaPlex that try to reinvent Friday nights at the synagogue by turning the temple into a multifaceted place for families to sing, learn and play together to greet Shabbat. I have seen Listening Campaigns that get congregations involved in social action by getting members to talk to each other about the things that concern them most deeply and personally.

These are all good ideas. These are all ways that can help reenergize Jewish communities. But they are not enough. The real way to attract Jews to the synagogue, to create energy around building a Jewish community, is simply to do what God asked the Israelites to do as they stood on the shores of the Red Sea: Stop your crying and just do what is right and act out of your highest values. That simple reminder is worth more than all the best-practice suggestions that you can learn by scanning the URJ website or reading the latest book on how synagogues tick.

I believe that the synagogues that will survive and thrive in the 21st century are the ones that ask: “What do we stand for?” and “What is the right thing to do?”

Let me tell you about the behaviors I see in the synagogues that are asking these questions:

1) They engage enthusiastically and whole-heartedly in social action. When congregations really look at the problems faced by real people in their communities and decide to do something that really will make a difference, they create an energy that is irresistible. There is nothing like the passion that goes along with truly helping people in need that makes Jews feel like their synagogue matters. I have seen people who were utterly lukewarm about supporting the synagogue until they had the experience of joining with other Jews to help to feed people who were hungry. It transforms the way people think about Jewish community. Instead of seeing the synagogue as a place to pay dues in order to get their kids “bar mitzvahed,” they start to see the synagogue as a place that challenges them to live up to their highest values. 2) The synagogues that will survive and thrive in the 21st century are the ones that stand for real and meaningful worship that moves people to joy. This cannot just be a gimmick, like handing out instruments on Friday night, and it is not just changing the music to a style more appealing to young people. When congregations stop thinking about their services as the ceremony to get through before the oneg, and start thinking of worship as a time for making deep connections to other people and taking the time to feel God’s presence in their lives, amazing things can happen. When a member of the congregation takes a moment to share memories of a loved-one before reciting the kaddish, the service is transformed into a moment of holiness for everyone. When congregants are invited to sing together with passion and energy, they lose themselves and join the experience of being part of something larger than themselves. That is the kind of service that people will look forward to attending every week. And, 3) The synagogues that will survive and thrive in the 21st century are the ones that engage people in deep Jewish learning that helps them reflect on the issues in their lives. By being the place where people come to learn in a way that helps them discover what their life is all about, the synagogue becomes the indispensable spiritual home for people of all ages. A synagogue that helps people discover what “doing the right thing” means for them is a synagogue that will never lack fervent supporters.

We are living in uncertain times for Judaism and —even more so — for Jewish institutions. If we want to cross the sea through these times, we need to reconnect with the values and the behaviors that are at the heart of Torah and of our tradition. We need to show God and ourselves that we mean to do more than just survive. We wish to thrive by doing mitzvot — doing what’s right and living up to our own highest values.

Composite photo of a solar eclipse taken outside of Doyle, California. (Click for link)

People of faith desire a life filled with awareness of God. They do not just want to feel God's presence when they are in synagogue, church or mosque, but wherever they go. We wish to have open hearts and mindful souls in all that we do — not just when we are in study or prayer, but also when we are washing dishes, balancing a checkbook, or playing with our children.

The problem, of course, is that this is not so easy. We are all apt to lose our spiritual center in the midst of everyday activities. We are prone to falling back into habits born out of anxiety, fear and desire, rather than those nurtured from our highest hopes and aspirations. It's hard to be godly 24/7.

And then, there is this: It is not clear that we would want to live with constant "God consciousness," even if we could. There are limits to how much we can take of God's presence in our lives. In order to function in this imperfect world, there are times when we have to allow ourselves to experience fear and stress, to give in to some of our cravings, and to play out our anxieties. We can try to do this in a mindful way — noticing what we are doing while we are doing it — but, ultimately, we need to be human. We are not angels.

There is a language for talking about this balance in Jewish tradition. The rabbis of the Talmud talk about the "Or Ganuz," the Hidden Light that is the remnant of the light of the first day of creation. This is not the ordinary light shed by the sun and moon. (Remember, they were not created until the fourth day). Rather, this is the light of ultimate wisdom and of God's presence in the world. According to the rabbis, this is the light by which one could see from one end of creation to the other. This is the light that God "wears like a garment" (Psalms 104:2). This is the light that God had to hide from the world when human beings entered creation.

Why? Because we are not ready for it. Because we would be blinded by it. Because we could not function in this reality if we were constantly in the midst of such light. The Or Ganuz is the Jewish metaphor for the way that God is hidden and revealed at the same time, with just the right amount peaking around the corners of our lives when we are able to see it.

In his great work, Kedushat Levi, the Chasidic master Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev wrote about this hidden, supernal light in connection to this week's Torah portion (Bo). In the story of the Exodus, the ninth plague that God brought down on Egypt was a plague of darkness — darkness so thick that it could be touched. Yet, throughout the three days of darkness, the Israelites continued to "enjoy light in their dwellings" (Exodus 10:21-23). According to Levi Yitzchak, the palpable darkness that the Egyptians experienced was the screen that God brings into the world to prevent the Hidden Light from blinding us.

God, says Levi Yitzchak, allows us to see exactly as much of the Hidden Light as we are capable of perceiving. Most of the creatures of the world, he says, have a set and unchanging amount of the Or Ganuz that they merit to see. Yet, for Israel, Torah and mitzvot are a path that allow us to grow in the amount of God's light available to us. As we grow in our capacity for compassion, our awe for the miracles that surround us, and our drive to make the world a better place, our light grows.

This is why the Torah says that "all the Israelites enjoyed light in their dwellings," rather than saying "for all the Israelites, there was no darkness." The latter phrase, expressed in the negative, would have been parallel to the earlier declaration that, "not a head of the livestock of Israel had died," in the fifth plague (Exodus 9:7), or, "where the Israelites lived, there was no hail," in the seventh plague (Exodus 9:26). By stating positively that the Israelites enjoyed light while the Egyptians suffered darkness, according to Levi Yitchak, the Torah emphasizes that the Israelites took the positive action of performing mitzvot to lift themselves to higher and higher levels of light.The Egyptians, on the other hand, who were unrepentant of oppressing the Israelites even after the first eight plagues, had nothing to lift them out of this darkness. For them, the screen that hid God's light from them was the only reality.

Modern readers of the Torah may see Levi Yitzchak's reading as overreach. The concept of the Or Ganuz, the Hidden Light of the first day of creation, is a rabbinic interpretation. There is no reason to believe that the original readers of the Torah would have connected the light of Creation to the lights that the Israelites enjoyed during the eighth plague. Yet, Levi Yitzchak's reading does make spiritual sense, if not literary or historical sense. We do find that our ability to perceive God's presence in the world is connected to our devotion to doing the things that connect us to God.

When I use my time and energies to comfort people who are in pain, I feel like I am rewarded by being able to peer more deeply into the recesses of life's hidden meaning. When I celebrate joyously with others in their holy moments, I feel a little bit of the light shining on me. We expand our world and the world of life's truest treasures when we engage in acts of holiness.

Such light comes to us in small increments. We human beings may be too fragile creatures to experience more than a glimpse of the divine light, and there are parts of us that need to be shaded from it if we are to survive this material existence. But we still yearn for the light that burns. We take comfort in knowing that, through our actions and intentions, we can grow from strength to strength, and merit the opportunity to live more fully in the light.

Welcome

This blog is about living a joyful Jewish life and bringing joy to synagogues and the Jewish community. Join the conversation by commenting on posts and sharing your experiences. For more on the topic, read the First Post.